Daydreams and Nightmares
by Chibi Pineapple
Summary: Nico di Angelo has always been alone. He feels unwanted, misunderstood, and unloved. He wants to love someone and for that person to love him back. Then, he meets Marigold Astarte, daughter of Apollo. Nico x OC
1. Prologue

Prologue

From the day I was born, I felt like the universe hated me. I was thrown into the Lotus casino, disconnected from the world and lied to. When I learned the truth, I felt like my father had abandoned me and did not care about me at all. My only consolation, the person I loved and cared for the most, was my older sister, Bianca. And then, she died.

I felt like I had been betrayed by the person I had entrusted Bianca to, a boy named Percy Jackson. I hated Percy, yet at the same time I also had growing feelings of admiration and caring for him. It made me so confused and angry at myself. After I finally learned to forgive Percy, I had fallen in love with him, but he would never love me back.

At many times, I felt like my life was worthless and did not matter, and the only reason I stayed was because of a young girl named Hazel Levesque. Among the horde of dead souls in the fields of Asphodel, one girl stood out. She seemed to have an aura of darkness around her. When I learned that she was a child of Hades, like me, I immediately brought her back to the living.

I still love Hazel, but I wish I had someone to love, someone more than a sister. I want to ignore my loneliness and the stares and whispers, but I just can't. I feel unwanted and unloved. Being the child of Hades is like a curse, to be forever judged as a dark and uncompatible human being from the day you were born.


	2. Chapter 1

Chapter one

The smell of food was too alluring to ignore. My stomach growled until it was too loud to ignore. _I'll just drop a visit to the mess hall and get myself something,_ I decided. I clenched my fists and concentrated on my destination, the mess hall. A few seconds later, I teleported myself right in the middle of the mess hall. Everyone turned to stare at me. _Dang it_, I thought. I had been planning to shadow travel to the small grove of trees next to the mess hall, but instead I landed right smack dab in the middle of it. I bent my head, ignoring the snickers coming from the other campers. I made my way to the line and a hamburger and fries appeared on my plate.

I walked up to the alter and threw in a handful of fries from my tray. Hazel and the other roman kids were visiting today to see how camp half-blood is like, so it was free seating. Hazel waved me over to where she was sitting with Percy, Annabeth, Leo, Jason, Piper, Frank, and Reyna. I sat down next to Hazel and quietly ate me hamburger while the others chattered away. Jason noticed me and gave me a smile. "Hey, Nico. We were just talking about which camp is better, Roman or Greek. Which do you think is better?" asked Jason. I knew that Jason was just trying to be nice to me and include me in the conversation. Ever since the visit with Cupid, Jason had been extra nice to me. "I think the Greek camp is better." I said, but only to be polite.

Whatever Jason said next, I couldn't hear him. I had heard something else off in the distant. It wasn't very loud and only I heard it, but it was unmistakably recognizable. It was a scream. I quietly got up. "Sorry, guys. I have to go." I said. I didn't want to tell anyone about the scream in the off chance it was just a false alarm. _I'll just go see what it is,_ I thought. "Wait, Nico!" said Hazel, but I had already shadow traveled to the source of the sound, near the entrance of the camp. I looked around and then I saw, at the bottom of the tall hill, a young girl about my age running from a monster. The girl had messy golden hair and large blue eyes and her figure was lean and tall. She looked seriously freaked out, but who could blame her, she was being chased by a monster. _She must be a demigod._ I thought. _But where's the satyr?_ The monster was currently busy eating something on the ground. When I saw what looked like a hoof, I realized that the "snack" the monster was feasting on was the satyr. I felt like throwing up. I shook off the disgust. Right now, my priority was getting that girl to safety before the monster was finished eating.

I ran down the hill to the girl. "Get past that pine tree and you'll be safe." I told her, pointing to the tree at the top. She stared at me with afraid eyes and when she opened her mouth to speak, questions poured out. "What the heck is going on? Why is there a monster chasing me? Wh—" I interrupted her. "There's not enough time to answer all of your questions. Hurry up and get past that tree, and I'll tell you everything." I didn't mention the part where I might not be able to tell her everything if I couldn't defeat the monster. She ran up the hill. Halfway there she seemed to remember I was still here and turned around. "Wait, what about you?" I pulled out my Stygian iron sword. "I'll take care of the monster." I said. She paled when she saw the sword, but all she did was shake her head and run up hill.

I looked back at the monster, which was done with his goat snack. It looked extremely angry, almost like it was thinking, _hey, who are you and what did you do with that pretty girl I was about to eat?_ Not that I thought that girl was pretty. The monster snorted before charging right at me. I shadow traveled a few feet to my right. The monster slammed into the tree behind me. Unfortunately, it didn't fall unconscious or anything like that. Instead, it was even angrier than before. The monster shook off the bump and roared furiously. It stood on its haunches and reared its head back. It was only when I smelled the smoke that I realized I was going to be burned alive by whatever was about to come out of that monster's jaws. Unfortunately, the flaming sphere of hot gas was already hurtling straight towards me. _Oh crap._


	3. Chapter 2

***I just realized that I haven't done any disclaimers, so...**

**Disclaimer: I do not own any of the characters except for lovely Marigold.***

The monster reared it's head back. I only had time to think _oh crap_ before a flaming ball of gas flew towards me. A few seconds before my imminent death, I heard a shout and someone crashed into me, sending me to the ground. It was that girl with the gold hair, the same person who I was fighting, or at least trying to fight, this monster for. She looked at me with wide eyes. "That was crazy! You almost got burned to a crisp!" she exclaimed. _Yeah, I noticed that,_ I thought, but I didn't say it out loud. That girl had just saved my life and witty sarcastic comments weren't very gratifying. I brushed off my jeans. "Thanks" was all I said. She looked angrily at me. "I thought you said you'd take care of the monster! Getting lit on fire is not taking care of it." I didn't say anything, instead I looked back at the monster. It was awfully quiet for some reason. When I saw it rearing back it's head, I realized it was preparing another flaming spit ball.

I quickly pulled the girl back away from the monster. "Ow, hey what are you doing?" she said. "I don't know if you notice this but there's a monster chasing us and it's about to kill us. Just thought you might want to know." I said to her. She rolled her eyes but I just ignored it. I thought about what I could do to save our butts. I could shadow travel the girl back to the camp and then go back and kill the monster, but that would just bring me back to square one. Even if I did that, how was I supposed to kill a monster that had razor sharp teeth and deadly fire spit? I could just shadow travel both of us and leave the monster alone, but we would have to kill it somehow. We couldn't just leave it alone to rampage the camp.

I smelled smoke and quickly pulled the girl to the right, narrowly dodging a fire ball. The monster looked super annoyed now and it had resorted to just charging us. Before I could shadow travel away, the monster stopped. It looked around with a weird look of confusion and fear. I turned back to the girl who was seriously freaked out. "Wh- what just happened?" she whispered. "Well, it seems that the monster has forgotten that we are here." I said. She shook her head. "No, what- something came out of my hand. I just saw something shoot out of my hand and at the monster." I stared at her. "Well, you're a demigod so that's probably one of your powers." The girl sighed but didn't say anything. I looked back at the monster. It sniffed the air until it seemed to find us. I assumed that whatever the girl did had made the monster blind, but since demigods are supposedly really smelly, it didn't take the monster long to recover. It roared and charged back at us. This time, I took action instead of just shadow traveling away. I raised my sword and roared back at it. I have to admit roaring was a little over the top, but I had the strangest primal urge to do so. I dodged the monster and slashed at it, my sword cutting through its arm. The monster dissipated in a cloud of yellow dust. I heard a gasp come from behind me. The girl looked deathly pale.

Then, I heard yelling from the top of the hill. All of the roaring had attracted the attention of some campers. I saw Hazel from among them and when she saw me, she ran down the hill, Frank trailing behind her. Hazel looked extremely worried. "Nico! Are you okay?" she exclaimed. "Yeah, I'm fine." I said. I pointed to the girl. "This is, uh..." "Marigold." "Yeah, Marigold. She's a demigod. Hazel, could you take her to Chiron for me? I think he can explain everything. Tell him that she just came." I told Hazel. Hazel looked from Marigold to me but she just sighed and took Marigold's hand. They walked up the hill and towards the Big House. Frank rushed to follow Hazel, leaving me alone like always. But, whatever, I doesn't matter since I'm used to it now.

***And that was chapter 2****. Yeah, I know the ending sucked but whatever. Be ready for the next chapter in about a week!***


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